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matthewmansell's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
slow-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Emotional abuse and Toxic relationship
Moderate: Death and Rape
stefanieh's review against another edition
4.0
It took me three years to read it but I am glad I did. I ended up really enjoying it though it was touch and go there for a while.
coffeeandink's review against another edition
4.0
Going from [b:Pamela|417549|Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded|Samuel Richardson|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1387740117s/417549.jpg|2214950] to [b:Clarissa|624600|Clarissa|Érico Veríssimo|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1250707015s/624600.jpg|610960] feels like leaping 300 years in the history of the novel. Yes, Clarissa is (way, way, WAY) too long, but it does need some of that length: the psychological acuity is incredible.
lnatal's review against another edition
3.0
Free download available at eBooks@Adelaide.
And the audio version at LibriVox..
From BBC Radio 4 - Classical Serial:
Dramatisation by Hattie Naylor of the 1748 novel by Samuel Richardson.
The beautiful young heiress Clarissa Harlowe is dangerously attracted by the wiles of the notorious libertine Robert Lovelace. Threatened by an imminent marriage arranged with the odious suitor her family have found for her, Lovelace persuades Clarissa to flee with him.
Clarissa Harlowe ...... Zoe Waites
Robert Lovelace ...... Richard Armitage
James Harlowe ...... Oliver Milburn
Solmes ...... Stephen Critchlow
Bella Harlowe ...... Sophie Thompson
Lady Harlowe ...... Alison Steadman
Lord Harlowe ...... John Rowe
Mrs Norton ...... Deborah Findlay
Anna Howe ...... Cathy Sara
Directed by Marilyn Imrie
And the audio version at LibriVox..
From BBC Radio 4 - Classical Serial:
Dramatisation by Hattie Naylor of the 1748 novel by Samuel Richardson.
The beautiful young heiress Clarissa Harlowe is dangerously attracted by the wiles of the notorious libertine Robert Lovelace. Threatened by an imminent marriage arranged with the odious suitor her family have found for her, Lovelace persuades Clarissa to flee with him.
Clarissa Harlowe ...... Zoe Waites
Robert Lovelace ...... Richard Armitage
James Harlowe ...... Oliver Milburn
Solmes ...... Stephen Critchlow
Bella Harlowe ...... Sophie Thompson
Lady Harlowe ...... Alison Steadman
Lord Harlowe ...... John Rowe
Mrs Norton ...... Deborah Findlay
Anna Howe ...... Cathy Sara
Directed by Marilyn Imrie
assimbya's review against another edition
5.0
I would never recommend this book to anyone.
I will say that first off, despite my love of it, despite the fact that it will remain present in my consciousness a long time, and I may write things on it, may deliberately continue my interaction with the text in the way that one sometimes does after finishing a book that has had such an impact upon them.
For it was a completely devestating eight hundred closely written pages, letter after letter after letter. One knew from very early on where the plot was going, but yet it still managed to wreck havoc with my emotions up through the very last page.
It is, in the simplest form, the chronicle of a young woman with a startlingly, unusually, poignantly strong sense of personal integrity, both physical and moral, and the way that the world, from all angles, goes out of its way to destroy that integrity. I do not read it as a tragedy about 'virtue'/chastity, or a reflection of the larger position of women in society at the time, though Clarissa's helplessness certainly does serve as an example of that, for to me it is plainly and simply the story of an individual. As an individual tragedy it is, as I have said, devestating.
The craft of the epistolary novel, though one unfamiliar to most modern readers, is perfectly demonstrated here, as Clarissa and Lovelace's letters reveal plot and character with pitch-perfect pacing and tone. They are both very complicated individuals, perfect creations of a talented author, and the epistolary format was no doubt the most effective one to show that.
I loved this book. I loved this book entirely and intensely. But I wouldn't recommend it to anyone else. Either it would be as devestating to them as it was to me, or they would find the style dull and tiresome. Neither outcome would be particularly profitable to the reader (though, if you like books of this sort and are willing to spend a few days wrapped in the intensity of it...how can I dissuade you?).
I will say that first off, despite my love of it, despite the fact that it will remain present in my consciousness a long time, and I may write things on it, may deliberately continue my interaction with the text in the way that one sometimes does after finishing a book that has had such an impact upon them.
For it was a completely devestating eight hundred closely written pages, letter after letter after letter. One knew from very early on where the plot was going, but yet it still managed to wreck havoc with my emotions up through the very last page.
It is, in the simplest form, the chronicle of a young woman with a startlingly, unusually, poignantly strong sense of personal integrity, both physical and moral, and the way that the world, from all angles, goes out of its way to destroy that integrity. I do not read it as a tragedy about 'virtue'/chastity, or a reflection of the larger position of women in society at the time, though Clarissa's helplessness certainly does serve as an example of that, for to me it is plainly and simply the story of an individual. As an individual tragedy it is, as I have said, devestating.
The craft of the epistolary novel, though one unfamiliar to most modern readers, is perfectly demonstrated here, as Clarissa and Lovelace's letters reveal plot and character with pitch-perfect pacing and tone. They are both very complicated individuals, perfect creations of a talented author, and the epistolary format was no doubt the most effective one to show that.
I loved this book. I loved this book entirely and intensely. But I wouldn't recommend it to anyone else. Either it would be as devestating to them as it was to me, or they would find the style dull and tiresome. Neither outcome would be particularly profitable to the reader (though, if you like books of this sort and are willing to spend a few days wrapped in the intensity of it...how can I dissuade you?).
cgcunard's review against another edition
5.0
When I had just finished this novel, I was not in the state of mind conducive to reviewing it. Over a week later I suspect I am still not in that state of mind, but may never be, so now is better than never.
I read this book, not out of any personal interest or draw, but because I study the eighteenth century novel and you really can't even pretend to do that at the graduate level without making your way, at one point or another, through Clarissa. I will admit, I was dreading the experience a bit (though that never stopped me from acknowledging its inevitability). I had read Pamela as an undergrad, and despite being taught by a very enthusiastic professor, I didn't fall in love with Richardson. I found the novel interesting from a scholarly viewpoint, but not something that really touched me personally -- not something that made me feel as much as it made me think.
Clarissa is another story.
For one, I was incredibly surprised by the quality of Richardson's writing, which to my mind has taken a definite upturn in the interval post-Pamela, though this may be a function of characterization -- Clarissa is, after all, of a much higher social class than Pamela, and to Richardson, this would rather neatly correlate with their writerly abilities. But it's more than that, because where Pamela's view of events was occasionally compelling, it was also often disappointingly one-sided. Not so Clarissa! If anything, it's the multiplicity of the epistolary structure in this novel that makes it compelling. And while Richardson's purposes are obviously didactic, there are times in Clarissa where I found myself forgetting that (or at least not foregrounding it), in ways that I'm not sure Pamela ever let me do. I respect the novel as a massive, ordered, measured construction, which Richardson obviously spent a great deal of time and effort producing.
And while sometimes the things it made me feel weren't pleasant, this is a novel that got me feeling in ways its predecessor just didn't. I care about Clarissa and Anna in ways I don't about a lot of other eighteenth-century fictional characters (*cough* Tom Jones *cough*). And while, from an academic standpoint, this isn't exactly the standard by which a text ought be judged, I take issue with that standard at times, because what do we read these novels for if not for our sense that they matter, emotionally as well as intellectually?
It's long and it's difficult and I wouldn't actually recommend it to anyone who wasn't planning to teach eighteenth-century literature at the college level, but I have found (and continue to find) this novel rewarding...when I'm not so frustrated that I could throw it out a window.
I read this book, not out of any personal interest or draw, but because I study the eighteenth century novel and you really can't even pretend to do that at the graduate level without making your way, at one point or another, through Clarissa. I will admit, I was dreading the experience a bit (though that never stopped me from acknowledging its inevitability). I had read Pamela as an undergrad, and despite being taught by a very enthusiastic professor, I didn't fall in love with Richardson. I found the novel interesting from a scholarly viewpoint, but not something that really touched me personally -- not something that made me feel as much as it made me think.
Clarissa is another story.
For one, I was incredibly surprised by the quality of Richardson's writing, which to my mind has taken a definite upturn in the interval post-Pamela, though this may be a function of characterization -- Clarissa is, after all, of a much higher social class than Pamela, and to Richardson, this would rather neatly correlate with their writerly abilities. But it's more than that, because where Pamela's view of events was occasionally compelling, it was also often disappointingly one-sided. Not so Clarissa! If anything, it's the multiplicity of the epistolary structure in this novel that makes it compelling. And while Richardson's purposes are obviously didactic, there are times in Clarissa where I found myself forgetting that (or at least not foregrounding it), in ways that I'm not sure Pamela ever let me do. I respect the novel as a massive, ordered, measured construction, which Richardson obviously spent a great deal of time and effort producing.
And while sometimes the things it made me feel weren't pleasant, this is a novel that got me feeling in ways its predecessor just didn't. I care about Clarissa and Anna in ways I don't about a lot of other eighteenth-century fictional characters (*cough* Tom Jones *cough*). And while, from an academic standpoint, this isn't exactly the standard by which a text ought be judged, I take issue with that standard at times, because what do we read these novels for if not for our sense that they matter, emotionally as well as intellectually?
It's long and it's difficult and I wouldn't actually recommend it to anyone who wasn't planning to teach eighteenth-century literature at the college level, but I have found (and continue to find) this novel rewarding...when I'm not so frustrated that I could throw it out a window.
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